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Dec 9, 2025
TV Tinsel: Mads Mikkelsen finally looks under the bed in 'Dust Bunny'
The Baltimore Sun
When he was a little boy Danish actor Mads Mikkelsen was sure there was a monster hiding under his bed. "I couldn't look under my bed, and I had to jump into it from a faraway distance knowing something was there," he says.
"But it could also be other places than under the bed, you know, around the corner, behind the door. I don't know why, but the darkness does something to you for sure."
That darkness is pursing him again in his new film, "Dust Bunny." Mikkelsen is known for his sinister villains in films like "Doctor Strange," "Fantastic Beasts: The Secrets of Dumbledore" and "Casino Royale," and as Hannibal Lecter from the NBC series "Hannibal."
This time he's a hero of sorts. Well, actually he's a hit man who's hired by a little girl to kill the monster under her bed. For this film Mikkkelsen broke the actors' rule about not performing with children or animals, as most of his scenes are with little Sophie Sloan.
That's not a problem, he says. "Children bring a certain innocence, and we tend to focus a little more on them and not on ourselves when we act with children," he says. "And all of a sudden, you don't focus on yourself at all, and that is often a very good thing for an actor."
The 60-year-old performer doesn't concentrate on himself. In fact, he began as a dancer with no thought of acting at all. "I enjoyed tremendously to be a dancer," he says in his slight Danish accent.
"I started late though, and I was probably more interested in the drama of dancing rather than the aesthetics. And once I touched upon, like, small roles in theaters and musicals and stuff, I thought maybe I should try drama full-time. A few people encouraged me. I don't know exactly what they saw, but they felt I had a certain vibe around me and that was really nice and helpful."
He was still a student when he landed his first role. "I was really lucky. I was in drama school and did a film in my third year, and that came out when I graduated, so that did something for me. So t
